[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.They are both, ofcourse, stories of rhetoric, but what we will analyze will be the rhetoric of thestories.First, from the Appendix on Poetic Diction, the history of abuse:The earliest Poets of all nations generally wrote from passionexcited by real events; they wrote naturally, and as men: feelingpowerfully as they did, their language was daring, and figurative.In succeeding times, Poets, and men ambitious of the fame ofPoets, perceiving the influence of such language, and desirous ofproducing the same effect, without having the same animatingpassion, set themselves to a mechanical adoption of those figuresof speech, and made use of them, sometimes with propriety, butmuch more frequently applied them to feelings and ideas withwhich they had no natural connection whatsoever.A language wasthus insensibly produced, differing materially from the reallanguage of men in any situation [original emphasis].The Readeror Hearer of this distorted language found himself in a perturbedand unusual state of mind: when affected by the genuine languageof passion he had been in a perturbed and unusual state of mindalso: in both cases he was willing that his common judgment and 18Barbara Johnsonunderstanding should be laid asleep, and he had no instinctiveand infallible perception of the true to make him reject thefalse.This distorted language was received with admiration; andPoets, it is probable, who had before contented themselves forthe most part with misapplying only expressions which at first hadbeen dictated by real passion, carried the abuse still further, andintroduced phrases composed apparently in the spirit of theoriginal figurative language of passion, yet altogether of theirown invention, and distinguished by various degrees of wantondeviation from good sense and nature.In process of time metrebecame a symbol or promise of this unusual language, andwhoever took upon him to write in metre, according as hepossessed more or less of true poetic genius, introduced less ormore of this adulterated phraseology into his compositions, and thetrue and false became so inseparably interwoven that the taste ofmen was gradually perverted; and this language was received as anatural language; and at length, by the influence of books uponmen, did to a certain degree really become so.(pp.90 91;emphasis mine unless otherwise indicated)In this history of abuse, the natural and the mechanical, the true and thefalse, become utterly indistinguishable.It becomes all the more necessarybut all the more difficult to restore the boundary line.Each timeWordsworth attempts to do so, however, the distinction breaks down.Thenatural becomes unnatural, life imitates art, and mechanical inventions aremistaken for the natural language of passion.Wordsworth s other developmental narrative is one that leads not todegradation but to amelioration.This time the story takes place in atemporality of the self, the temporality expressed by the juxtaposition of thetwo clauses: Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, and it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity. ForWordsworth, in other words, the poet is a man who attempts to write inobedience to the classic example of the double bind: be spontaneous. In anearly paragraph in the preface, Wordsworth makes the double bind into adevelopmental narrative, in which the acrobatics of grammar the sustainedavoidance of any grammatical break mimes the desire for seamlesscontinuity.If the whole story can be told in one breath, Wordsworth implies,then nothing will be lost, the recuperation of the spontaneous will becomplete. 19Poe and Wordsworth on the Nature of Poetic LanguageFor all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerfulfeelings: but though this be true, Poems to which any value canbe attached, were never produced on any variety of subjects butby a man, who being possessed of more than usual organicsensibility, had also thought long and deeply [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl milosnikstop.keep.pl
.They are both, ofcourse, stories of rhetoric, but what we will analyze will be the rhetoric of thestories.First, from the Appendix on Poetic Diction, the history of abuse:The earliest Poets of all nations generally wrote from passionexcited by real events; they wrote naturally, and as men: feelingpowerfully as they did, their language was daring, and figurative.In succeeding times, Poets, and men ambitious of the fame ofPoets, perceiving the influence of such language, and desirous ofproducing the same effect, without having the same animatingpassion, set themselves to a mechanical adoption of those figuresof speech, and made use of them, sometimes with propriety, butmuch more frequently applied them to feelings and ideas withwhich they had no natural connection whatsoever.A language wasthus insensibly produced, differing materially from the reallanguage of men in any situation [original emphasis].The Readeror Hearer of this distorted language found himself in a perturbedand unusual state of mind: when affected by the genuine languageof passion he had been in a perturbed and unusual state of mindalso: in both cases he was willing that his common judgment and 18Barbara Johnsonunderstanding should be laid asleep, and he had no instinctiveand infallible perception of the true to make him reject thefalse.This distorted language was received with admiration; andPoets, it is probable, who had before contented themselves forthe most part with misapplying only expressions which at first hadbeen dictated by real passion, carried the abuse still further, andintroduced phrases composed apparently in the spirit of theoriginal figurative language of passion, yet altogether of theirown invention, and distinguished by various degrees of wantondeviation from good sense and nature.In process of time metrebecame a symbol or promise of this unusual language, andwhoever took upon him to write in metre, according as hepossessed more or less of true poetic genius, introduced less ormore of this adulterated phraseology into his compositions, and thetrue and false became so inseparably interwoven that the taste ofmen was gradually perverted; and this language was received as anatural language; and at length, by the influence of books uponmen, did to a certain degree really become so.(pp.90 91;emphasis mine unless otherwise indicated)In this history of abuse, the natural and the mechanical, the true and thefalse, become utterly indistinguishable.It becomes all the more necessarybut all the more difficult to restore the boundary line.Each timeWordsworth attempts to do so, however, the distinction breaks down.Thenatural becomes unnatural, life imitates art, and mechanical inventions aremistaken for the natural language of passion.Wordsworth s other developmental narrative is one that leads not todegradation but to amelioration.This time the story takes place in atemporality of the self, the temporality expressed by the juxtaposition of thetwo clauses: Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, and it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity. ForWordsworth, in other words, the poet is a man who attempts to write inobedience to the classic example of the double bind: be spontaneous. In anearly paragraph in the preface, Wordsworth makes the double bind into adevelopmental narrative, in which the acrobatics of grammar the sustainedavoidance of any grammatical break mimes the desire for seamlesscontinuity.If the whole story can be told in one breath, Wordsworth implies,then nothing will be lost, the recuperation of the spontaneous will becomplete. 19Poe and Wordsworth on the Nature of Poetic LanguageFor all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerfulfeelings: but though this be true, Poems to which any value canbe attached, were never produced on any variety of subjects butby a man, who being possessed of more than usual organicsensibility, had also thought long and deeply [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]